WHO ARE WE?

We are just like you. We’re people who live locally, raise families, interact with the local community, serve on school committees and play local sport. We are also agents and we are all about making real estate real again.

No pretensions or game playing. We bring a wealth of experience and marketing expertise sourced from some of the best in the world. We have travelled far and wide to find what works and what doesn’t in real estate sales and we have learned from some of the best practitioners on the planet. We want you to benefit from that experience.

Our core belief is that you, our client, deserve only the best. The best agents, the best support staff, the best technology and the best information to make your sale the most rewarding it can be.

We also believe in fun mixed in with our hard work. We don’t take ourselves too seriously and we want you to feel comfortable in your dealings with us every step of the way. Our office layout has been carefully designed to ensure that anyone who walks through our doors will find a comfortable and non-threatening atmosphere in which to do business.

We’ll provide the coffee and all you need to bring is an open mind and a willingness to be bold and exciting. We are Market Share Property and we’re here to show you how to Buy. Sell. Better.

MSP CREW

JOHN PRATT

TROY HARRIS

FIONA McMURDO

DAVE STEWART

LEESA STEWART

THE SHARE MARKET

CLICK BELOW TO SEE OUR AVAILABLE HOMES.

Some of the hardest decisions we face in life are the ones we have to live with for a long time. Buying a home is one of those. It takes painstaking research, mountains of paperwork and endless appointments to find the right property to buy. We aim to make this process as easy for you as possible.

We work when you’re available. Simply click on the above link and scroll through our available properties. If you see something you like and you need more information pick up the phone, send through an email or text us and we will happily answer any questions you may have.

We know time is tight these days so we will endeavour to find a time that suits you to view the property. If opens work for you; easy. If your weekends are crammed with kids’ sport, shopping, chores or even work, however, then let us know and we’ll make another time.

We want our vendors to get a great sale and for that to happen we need buyers, so understand as a buyer you are very important to us and we treat you accordingly.

BACK YOURSELF.

It's time to shake things up!

At Market Share Property, we believe in the individual.

We want to give the best people the freedom to allow their creativity to flourish, and watch as amazing things happen. If you like rigid working hours, cubicles, long winded sales meetings and average commission splits then we're not for you.

But, if you like pushing boundaries, trying new things and living a free and creative life while being paid more to do it, then we need to talk.

At MSP we do strong, daring and innovative and we want to help talented agents reach for the stars and beyond.

We want dreamers, doers and world changers. If this is you, pick up the phone.

AWARDS

2018

We are thrilled to announce that we are a Finalist in the Real Estate Institute of Australia Awards for Excellence for the category, Innovation.

This is due to our hugely successful online offer management software, Market Buy, now used by hundreds of agents from around Australia and New Zealand.

The winner will be announced in Sydney on the 22nd of March.

2017

We are proud to announce that on the back of the stunning growth of our online offer software, Market Buy, we have been named as a Winner of the Innovation Category in the REIV Awards for Excellence 2017.

This is recognition of our unwavering desire to do things bigger and better. We are leaders in Australian Real Estate and many of the countries top agents rely on us and our software to run their high performance businesses.

If you want the best then you can't do much better than talking to the people who train the best in the industry.

2016

We've done it again!

MSP and its new software, Market Buy, is one of only two Victorian agents to be nominated a finalist at the 2016 Annual REA Excellence Awards. We are a finalist in the Game Changer of the Year award and places us as one of the top 3 Innovators in the country. We are proud of our willingness to think outside the box and bring a new level of service backed by the latest in technology.

Adding to our outstanding successes already of 2016, we have been named as the WINNER in the REIV Awards for Excellence for Corporate Promotion. If we know how to promote ourselves then we sure know how to make your property stand out from the crowd!

2014

In October 2014 Market Share Property was named as one of 6 Finalists in the REIV Awards for Excellence in the category of Innovation.

We are changing the way real estate is transacted in Melbourne. We are new, vibrant and one of the most innovative brands in Australian real estate.

We finalised our rollout of our software to agents throughout Australia and New Zealand and as of yesterday we now have 502 agencies with access to Market Buy. It is known by many different names as we supply the software and branding for the agents and they then create their own product name for it and market it as an in house product.

It’s the truth but agents wont want you to know this at all. Especially the big agencies, they’ll guard this secret until hell freezes over.

Here it is. We all use the same buyer enquiry lead systems. We all use the same major property portals and as such we all get the same amount of leads irrespective of whether we are big offices, small offices or anything in between.

The real estate industry has a way of doing things. It’s the same way things have always been done and despite some little changes in platform the reality stays the same.

What do I mean by this?

Simply those agents are more concerned with self-promotion than generating enquiry for their clients. An obvious example of this surely has to be local paper advertising. Every single agent knows that there is virtually zero buyer enquiry from this medium. They know it in their hearts and they know from the buyers they talk to.

If you look closely there is a significant change happening in the real estate world. More and more agents are breaking away from the traditional office based model and leveraging technology to operate as individual agents.

These agents are free from Franchise rules, over zealous bosses and company hours that, more often than not, put the company’s interest above those of their clients.

I am not a businessman. I am a dreamer. I do not exist for material gain. I don’t care about cars or watches or expensive suits. I found during early successes that money and material possessions are hollow and for the most part those things are chased in life merely to impress people you don’t know or don’t like.

We are 2 years old. Just a baby. In that time we have been recognised multiple times for our innovative and highly effective business structure.

Most recently we won the REIV Corporate Promotion Award. We were ecstatic with this recognition of our efforts in promoting our office. This is even more of a feather in our cap given that we have a strict policy of using only our own money to promote ourselves and we steadfastly refuse to follow the industry norm of using our client’s money for self-promotion.

Two years ago we embarked on this wild and crazy journey that is Market Share Property.

We began with disregarding everything we knew about starting real estate offices.

Industry wisdom told us that we needed to spend a lot of our client’s money on big ads. The bigger the better. Online and in print. The theory being that by using the funds made available to us through expensive advertising budgets that you could quickly and efficiently drive higher and higher levels of consumer awareness of your company.

MSP was born with a single vision in mind, innovation. At our core we are agents who, collectively, decided that the way things were done in real estate was broken. The relationship agents had with consumers and, indeed, each other was fundamentally flawed.

We were established, not so much to be the biggest but to aggressively challenge the industry. We started from a clean sheet of paper and then wrote down everything we knew about the industry and how to establish a successful office. We stared at it long and hard and we memorised every line. Then we scrunched it up and threw it in the bin. The words we memorised served as warning signs of what not to do.

I get battered a lot. I mean a lot, a lot. In quite a few cases I ask for it and I take my licks knowing I stuck my head out to get chopped off. Other times the beltings just come from extreme left field and I’m left wondering what the hell just happened.

Some days I wake up and groan at the toll it takes to keep moving forward. You see, I made a decision some time ago to be me. Sounds incredibly simple, yeah?

We all live in a digital world, whether we like it or not. We are all fixated by our phones.

You see people walking through throngs of others with their eyes glued to their screens. They may be texting friends, checking Facebook or checking Google maps to see where they are.

Even more recently we have seen the explosive phenomenon of Pokemon Go, which compelled millions of people from their armchairs to wander the streets chasing imaginary monsters in an augmented reality game that, in it’s first week, overtook Twitter for it’s number of daily users.

Someone asked me the other day who I looked up to, who in the world inspired me more than any other.

I did not even have to think about that question. It is, without a doubt, the late Steve Jobs. Many people see this man as a two dimensional character. To them he is the man who created Apple and went on to revolutionise music and phones.

Let’s face it, on the whole we don’t trust Politicians. During the election campaign they promise the world and ask you to choose them because they will look after your needs. Once they are elected, they are given a huge amount of power and many of these promises are never fulfilled because whether you like it or not, they now have the job.

Unfortunately many of the promises they made were never goning to be fullfilled. They stretch the truth on many policies so as to not let the truth get in the way of a good story.

In today’s tech savvy world we need to think about how our customers want to interact with us, the agents.

For many years now consumers have viewed agents as little better than pond scum. We drive the nicest cars and wear the best suits to try and convince ourselves otherwise but the pure reality is that the general public holds us to a very low standard.

When I became a real estate agent 18 years ago I just wanted to make some money. I was 23 and I had spent a few years living on the Gold Coast and I spent way more than I earned. This left me with a mountain of credit card debt and no real prospect of paying it off.

I saw real estate as an easy way to make fast money and much to my surprise I turned out to be pretty good at it.

This week we listed a new off the plan property located at 1/23 Liverpool Road, Kilsyth. It is a fantastic opportunity for first homebuyers to enter the market but there is one problem, the advertised price of $449,500. First homebuyers who have missed out time and time again on properties are so jaded by the lies they have been previously told they no longer trust when a price is written or know what to believe.

To prove this within 24 hours of launching the property four enquiries were received, each asking the same thing “What is the asking price?” Naturally we thought this may have been left off the advertisement at first for this question to be so prevalent, but upon checking saw it clearly said $449,500.

I first met and sold an Investment Property to a Gentleman 15 years ago, I had only just become a Real Estate Agent at the time and a friendship was formed that has continued to this day.

You might well say, “So what is so special about that?”

Well in the past 15 years this gentleman has bought and sold around 10 properties mainly in the Maroondah area, including buying another investment property today. Of all these purchases and sales I have been indirectly involved in about half as an advisor or as a list/sell Agent.

I observed the negotiation skills of John Pratt in our office yesterday and wanted to share this story for a very important reason. It is an insight into what goes on in a Real Estate Office and is the difference between a good & bad agent, and why it is so important to have the RIGHT strategy for the RIGHT property.

I had some time this morning to have a coffee and think about my morning routine and it occurred to me they are some things that had wormed their way into my life quietly and slyly.

I realised that as I woke up, the first thing I did was reach for my phone. I checked my emails while I turned the kettle on, I answered some, I checked messenger and finally at a sneak look at Facebook and Twitter. Facebook gave me a funny Dog video for the morning earning a small chuckle.

John has been on both sides of the fence in his building days. He has bought, renovated and sold over 10 homes of his own over the last 15 years. He brings invaluable experience to each and every sale he is involved in.

Welcome to PART TWO of New Underquoting Laws For Victoria. Today I will focus on how an agent will be allowed to advertise if this legislation is passed, why the current system is a joke and what happens if an offer is rejected.

Chris has spent many years in the development and education sector of real estate and under the umbrella of MSP, Chris has found a place that he can practice real estate without compromising any of his ethics.

It is the age old question, should I auction my home or sell it privately? After all, you want the highest price for your home so will one method get a better result than the other? The answer will depend on a lot of variables and a lot depends on the area you live in. I’m sure if you keep an eye on the local market you will notice that one method is used more than the other in your area. But does that mean that it is the right strategy?

I don’t have a Crystal Ball to predict the future (don’t we all wish we did?), but what I do know is that 2015 saw some crazy activity in the Melbourne property market. I also observed some major signs of change during November and December. Clearance rates were down, tightening on foreign investment kicked in 1 December and tighter lending for investment properties saw less investors in the marketplace.

Property is, and always will be influenced by supply and demand. Throughout the winter months there was massive growth in most suburbs across Melbourne. What the stats don’t tell you is that there were far more buyers than sellers. In other words it was a sellers market and they were able to achieve great prices partly due to a lack of supply. This pushed median prices up and in some cases gave false readings on the values of properties.

The latest quarter results are yet to be released but when they are I expect that many suburbs median price would have decreased. The truth is, in most cases that prices would not have actually decreased from 6 months ago, they have just been smoothed out from some more unrealistic results due to a lack of supply in the middle of the year.

This is good news for the buyer on two fronts, firstly, they will not have to stress so much about missing out. Prices are more stable in a flatter market. Secondly, a decrease in median values will freak some people out. After all, who wants to buy in a suburb where prices are decreasing? What if they fall more? Maybe I should wait? The longer a property is on the market, the more the vendor will have to be realistic and drop the price

Is this really all bad news for the vendor? Whilst everyone wants to get 2015 prices for their home, if the market cools off just slightly, then they will most likely be buying their next home in this cooled market too. Whilst they miss out on a higher sell price, they save on being able to buy cheaper.

So right now, I would say we are in a balanced market. Neither the buyer or the seller has a huge advantage over the other. Properties will always sell for what the market is willing to pay and so both parties will be successful if they are just realistic about a homes current value.

Each home is unique and if you want expert advice and a detailed report from one of market share properties consultants we are here to help. Even if you are not selling many people are interested to know the value of their homes and this information can be useful in the future.

For many years the real estate industry has provided little option to Owners and Buyers in the way they purchase real estate. Buyers are asked to meet with agents at the office and complete a mountain of paperwork even in cases where there are multiple offers. Once the property is then sold all that paperwork is shredded and all those deposits have to be refunded. This costs time and money both of which could be better spent on more dollar productive activities for all concerned.

The accepted path to building a new real estate office is to advertise as much as you can. That is use the money you can secure in the form of Vendor marketing to splash your brand in as many places as possible irrespective of whether this brings any real benefit to the Home Owner in the form of genuine buyer enquiries.

One of my colleagues placed Yoda on my desk. It took me a couple of days to notice him. Perplexed, I asked what the hell Yoda was doing hanging around my phone.

The reply was simple. He wanted me to remember our core values. He wanted me to be constantly reminded that we have built this company on ethics, transparency and innovation. In essence we must never be seduced by the dark side of real estate, namely the easy money.

There was a big announcement on Saturday by the Government in the lead up to the budget release on Tuesday. The Government announced that to even the playing field for local property buyers a number of changes will be introduced including:

When we started out we had one overarching goal. We wanted our clients to feel connected to us. We wanted to remove the negativity that surrounds so much of a real estate transaction and we wanted people to feel a part of the fabric of our company.

This topic confuses many people and often they are taken as one and the same. Agents in particular love to talk about marketing. When they discuss the placement of ads in the paper, on the net, brochures and other associated promotional material they will more often than not class this as marketing.

It’s not, it’s advertising. It’s very true that advertising is a component of marketing but they are not the same thing. It’s interesting that so many agents who command control over thousands of dollars of their clients money and sell themselves as marketing experts have such a fundamentally flawed understanding of basic marketing and advertising concepts.

Real estate is an odd industry. It’s one where the interests of the agents are often put before the interests of the client. Agents spend vast sums of other people’s money on marketing. The interesting fact is that many people within the real estate industry freely admit amongst themselves that much of this money is geared exclusively to bolster their own profile in the local market.

We decided to have a little bit of fun with our Auctions and bought in a PA system. It made it easier for the bidders to hear what was going on and also for all those people standing at the back there was no straining to hear. Have a look at the video and feel free to comment.

Most real estate offices exist for two purposes only, to sell homes and to rent homes. All of their income is derived from these sources and all of their energies are directed to making money. Often there is very little thought that goes into the how and why of the business they are. Rather, it is a ‘make money at any cost and with the least resistance’ scenario.

I understand this thought process and I have no real issue with it. However I like to run my offices a little differently, you see I have made a lot of money over the years in real estate and I found that there is very little satisfaction for me in just filling a bank account.

After spending the morning running around for my 23 year old son today, getting together stuff that he needed for his trip to New Zealand tomorrow, that he had 3 months to prepare for, I ask myself "have I spoilt my children?"

The obvious answer is "yes", but the real question is: How did this happen and what can I do about it?

It is a frustration in the Melbourne real estate market that you can find the property you love and it seems affordable, but then you find out on auction day that it is not. You walk away annoyed and despondent that you were never even in the race for the home of your dreams.

When we started MSP we took some mighty big risks. One of the biggest was our decision to only focus on marketing that would benefit our clients and do away with charging Vendors for advertising that we knew only served to promote our brand and did very little for the sale process.

Things like extensive print advertising, expensive upgrades on the major portals and ego centric marketing that focussed more on the agent than the property itself.

When we started this company we had a plan, a dream even, to give life to a business that valued not only its clients but also its people. We wanted to attract creative and inspiring people to help us make our vision a reality.

I thought we knew what that would look like. I thought I knew where those new team members would come from. I was as wrong as I have ever been and it’s fantastic.

The first few weeks of our company have been a whirlwind of activity. We have had the pleasure of meeting and dealing with some outstanding people and along the way more and more people are starting to notice what we are up to. We were recently named as one of 6 state finalists in the REIV Awards for excellence for Innovation and while we didn’t win on the night, it was just epic to make the cut in the first few weeks of our opening.

Customer Service is a phrase that is thrown around quite a bit in a lot of industries but especially in real estate. Every agency claims to have the upper hand when it comes to customer service. So, do they? Are all agents and agencies at the absolute top of their game in how they relate to customers and clients?

Many people have wandered into our office and asked us about our set up. Now that we have been running for a few weeks and put some sales on the board, what is it that we do exactly?

Well, we have created an environment more akin to a tech start up than a traditional real estate office. We have created open collaborative spaces and provided a technological framework for agents to be able to take their work off site. We have dispensed with cubicles and reception areas and we have instead replaced those areas with open discussion areas and booths for friendly and comfortable interaction with our customers, clients and visitors.

I seriously would not have believed what I saw today if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Let me start from the start. Well known social media and real estate trainer Peter Brewer linked a blog post from the U.S on Facebook that I read through. You can read it here http://eight11.com/simplicity/.

The world has changed significantly in the last few years. One of the biggest changes has been the availability of information and the ease with which people can access it. It means that, whereas once consumers were heavily reliant on industry professionals to provide market information, that same information can now be easily and accurately sourced from the net in a few swift mouse clicks.

At MSP we have worked very hard to create an office where the people who work there don’t actually have to be there. I know right, that’s weird. It’s not as odd as it sounds. Sales is a business about meeting people and making sure that you have the ability to react to enquiries and customers in a timely manner.

We have now sold two properties even before our office is officially opened. This a recent message received from our latest purchaser.

"David, Really great dealing with you. Sue & Rob are the second purchasers through MSP. Really different experience in real estate, and great to be the first to sign a contract in the new offices today. Onward and upward MSP & David"

Our new office will be ready for unveiling in just over a week. This concept has taken just on 12 months to bring to reality. We have had some ups and some downs in making our vision a reality. There have been many temptations to take the easy path in the form of franchise offers and even some lucrative opportunities to work in corporate environments but through the whole process we have stuck to our guns and forged forward.

For a long time real estate photo boards have remained the same. There have been some attempts at 3D lettering, different sizes and even funky colours but largely boards have not changed. The issue with standard boards are the cost and expense involved in creating them meaning that once produced and installed they are very difficult and expensive to alter.

During the course of my career in real estate I have filled many roles. I have won awards for sales and listings with a large franchise as a sales person. I have been a Sales Manager, a Co Director and then a Sole Director of franchised offices that have all won awards for customer service, sales performance and growth.

For many agents, the day to day grind of working in a real estate office is only broken up by the highs of sales and the thrill of listing new business. Sadly the other portions of their day consist of long droning sales meetings, office enforced training sessions and outdated work practices that stifle creativity and promote excessive burnout.

We are the rebels, the unorthodox and the dreamers. We are the ones who are told that our ideas will never work and we should just get back in line. Where most of our industry looks to emulate each other and tread a very safe and secure path, we look at the practices of real estate sales and break it back to its basics so it can be rebuilt in better ways others haven’t considered before.

Some months ago I was sitting in a room in New York with some ex Google engineers listening to them discuss the benefits and pitfalls of the latest round of major algorithm changes from Google. As the discussion invariably shot off on tangents an interesting point was reached. The discussion was focussed on the problem of duplication of material across a range of pages and the negative impacts from a ranking point of view this would have on small industry sites, most notably from my perspective, real estate office sites.

Over the years of running real estate offices I have harboured a desire to create a working space far removed from what has become the norm of Australian offices. I have grown to dislike cubicles, big desks and stuffy environments that do little for the consumer and stifle the creativity of the staff who spend countless hours working there. In fact, visiting a real estate office is stressful enough with so much money on the line that the cold and corporate like offices of today only serve to add to the discomfort for all concerned.

In the real estate world, marketing is a funny animal. We are one of the few industries that markets a product on behalf of a third person with the ability to smother that marketing in our own branding. In most cases in Australia that marketing cost is substantially, if not fully, covered by our clients. This puts us in a somewhat tricky situation. It stands to reason the more marketing we can sell to our clients on the premise of covering all the available buyers, the more exposure we are also able to generate for ourselves as a by-product.

So where to draw the line? When do we, as agents, cross the line from purely looking after our Vendors interests to spending their money for our own gain?

There was a time, not too long ago, when I thought I had to do everything. I thought that in order to succeed I needed to be an expert in every field. The let down to this theory was the blinding realisation that I am simply not that smart. There is no Dr Sheldon Cooper genius neural activity going on in my skull. The only thing I managed to achieve was to do everything at a mediocre level. This was a major blow to my ego and something I had to come to terms with. I have some excellent skills and abilities but I am far from an expert in everything.

Every day I walk from the gym to the other side of the complex to the pool. I change into my swimming shorts, lock my bag, keys, phone and wallet into the locker and then I stand on the edge of the pool staring at the water.

In front on me are 30 long and lonely laps and my mind races with reasons to turn around and go home. Simple reasons, dumb reasons but reasons none the less. I may have done extra sets with the weights or I might be waiting for a phone call. Maybe, I rationalise, I don't have the time to do a full 30 laps because I have to work through my call backs. Any reason sounds like a valid one with my toes at the edge of the water.

When I sold my last office, I was keen to remain in sales. Let's face it, that's what I'm good at and I'm not really qualified or interested in doing anything else. So I started talking to people. I took many, many phone calls and some high-powered opportunities began to present themselves. If someone called me I was happy to chat to them and the offers were wide and varied. Everything from running franchised offices to working in training within corporate environments became an option.

The last few years have brought many lessons. Some have been awesome and have helped immensely. Some experiences have been downright awful. The strange thing is the really bad experiences have taught me more about life than the good ones could ever have done. I have had to face my own internal demons and fight them tooth and nail. I’m proud to say I have beaten down every challenge I have faced. There have been some injuries, some collateral damage in the process but ultimately I learned to find peace.

This week has been an exciting one for our little start up. We finalised our logo, our tag lines and we got closer to our first ad. The rough artwork is there but there are some minor tweaks that are needed to give it the right feel.

Our logo perfectly represents our desire to be held accountable for our results by the consumers. Gone are the days of looking for validation within the real estate industry. It does not matter how many agents like or don't like what we are doing, it does not matter how many agents like our pages and it certainly does not matter what other agents say about us.

In the last couple of months since we embarked on the path to creating our new venture, the challenges have come at us thick and fast and we have only just begun! Office space that was almost secured and then the owners decide to sell; companies that we rely on that suddenly change tack and a myriad of other little obstacles that have surfaced to test our patience and our resolve.

I was chatting to someone last week who I have known for most of my life. His tale of woe seemed to have no end. Bad relationship, money troubles and plenty more on top of this seemed to add to his pain. We spent some time talking and rather than provide solutions I just allowed him to vent. Over the course of our time together one thing became blindingly apparent. He didn't feel like he was able to live up to the expectations he had set for himself. He constantly referred to Joe Bloggs who had more money or Fred who spent more time with his kids or some other guy who seemed to have the perfect relationship.

We're off tomorrow to visit Press Play Creative for a presentation of our new logos. They have been working away on it for a couple of weeks now and we are very excited to see what they have come up with. Press Play are a group of creative, motivated individuals who specialise in unique marketing. We have worked with them in the past and what we like about them is that they are happy to not follow the rules. They get us and they get that we come at marketing in a somewhat unusual angle.

The first rule of combat is that no operational plan survives first contact with the enemy. This is also true of business. It does not matter how much research you undertake or how much expertise you have in your field, the best laid plans are sure to run into obstacles and major ones at that. While this can cause much heartache and concern amongst business owners, it is not something to be concerned about.

The natural order of business provides for so many variables it is impossible to know and plan for them all and Murphys Law dictates that the most obscure and hard to resolve hurdles are invariably the ones you will be confronted with.

This world is filled with the things we think we should do. We are constantly told how to dress, how to talk, how to work and how to live. Society dictates its expectations and delivers those messages through advertising and mass media. From an early age we are taught to conform to the social rules of our surroundings and most importantly we are taught not to challenge authority.

In our society if you rock the boat you run the risk of being treated as an outcast, in work, in social environments and especially in business. There are accepted ways of doing things and should you challenge and argue against those conventions you can expect to be treated as a trouble maker.

In early man, fear was vital to day to day survival. It was good to be scared of a lion, it was good to be scared of falling off high cliffs and rarely was that fear misplaced. Fear kept us alive long enough to have the children who would strengthen and ensure survival for all in the group, clan or tribe.

In the modern world, fear is still a survival mechanism; jumping off the roof of a high rise with no parachute is ill advised and will probably result in a premature departure from this mortal coil. In many other cases fear can provide barriers to personal growth.

I had a pretty frank and open discussion with a well-known real estate agent the other day. He was quite scathing of my work attire. To paint the picture he was wearing an average looking suit, a bright tie and a pair of slip on black shoes. I was in a nice pair of jeans, my company polo shirt (emblazoned with the company logo) and a pair of shiny ankle length black boots. In his mind I was being unprofessional. I looked up at the blazing sun and noting that it was in excess of 30 degrees, to me he looked like a sweaty fool. This agent was stridently of the opinion that consumers would not take his expertise seriously if he dared to wear comfortable clothing.

I was scrolling through online chat boards the other day and I came across a post from a well-known real estate trainer. He told his audience that if they showed up to an appointment as a salesperson they should expect to be treated like a salesperson and this was to be avoided at all costs. Ok, so I should arrive as a giraffe? A mechanic? How about a courier, would that be better? This approach smacks of deception to me and any form of deception has no place in professional sales. Selling well is not about slickness or lying, it’s about connecting a willing consumer with a beneficial product and ensuring that the process is completed in the smoothest possible way. Forget the old stereotypes, sales is based on meeting consumer expectations and making the process of buying easier and pleasant, something this trainer obviously fails to understand.

The online world exists for too many in real estate as a hazy nether world made up only of the face pages they see on their screen. Most see their Facebook page and their home pages but fail to see anything deeper. They view those experienced in the inner workings of the net to be hoody clad outcasts who spend their lives in darkened rooms huddled over whizzing computers performing some sort of electronic sorcery. The amount of emails business owners receive promising 1st page on Google attests to this fundamental, large scale naivety of the net.

I have been in sales my whole life and I have lots of shiny plaques in a box in the garage that suggests I have been pretty good at it. There is one thing that has become evident to me over time. The traditional boss believes that a salesperson should be slugging away for up to, and sometimes even exceeding 80 hours per week to be super successful. This involves the employee showing up to work at 8:30am and not clocking out until 6:30 or later. It is also expected that for many industries, including real estate, that the sales person will work 6 – 7 days a week. The assumption is that if this salesperson puts this level of attendance into their job that they are motivated and more likely to generate high sales figures. This assumption is fundamentally false and here’s why.

A serious question I have been throwing around over the last few days is that of identity. Specifically, the identity of a business. Can an entity as opposed to a person have a true identity? Can the make-up and structure of a company exude the same charisma that a human can? If it can, then how much impact do the owners of that company have on how it is perceived in the market place?

The main thrust of most companies I have either owned or be involved with up until this point have existed for the sole reason of making money. The overriding aim has been to be profitable and to try and reflect the personality that best suits the market place. From how the staff are dressed to how the business is presented have all been determined by a cold analysis of what the perceived consumer would be most comfortable with.

I have a goal, a vision, if you like. I believe in this unique point in human history where everyone is connected, where relationships can be formed from the four corners of the globe with the ease that our parents connected with their neighbours, that technology will bring us full circle. As we learn to live with Facebook updates, Tweets, Instagram photos and all the other platforms, we are learning, once again, to connect with people. For no matter how much technology invades our lives, it is the relationships we create and nurture with people who are the core to our satisfaction.

I have been a real estate agent for my entire adult life. As a university drop out I was yearning for an exciting career, one that didn’t lock me into a desk or force me to repeat the same mundane tasks day after day and in real estate I found just that. A job that provided endless changes, challenges and enough excitement to keep even a hardened adrenalin freak like myself satisfied.

In my 15 years I have been a salesman, a sales manager, a partner in a large franchise, a single owner of two franchise offices and an owner of an independent office. During this journey I have come to appreciate all that is good about the real estate industry and also to recognise that the people who make up its core, the sales people, the property managers and the administration teams are some of the most dedicated and committed people in the Australian workforce today.